I was surprised to find a rabbit's foot in my Easter Basket yesterday. I'm confused as to whether it was the Easter bunny's own foot or possibly the holiday icon's arch-nemesis'. Maybe Bugs Bunny, Thumper, Roger Rabbit, Donnie Darko... beats me. Regardless of this morbid gesture I believe it is an omen that good things are coming.

Rabbits symbolize fertility because of their ability to reproduce and the frequency in which they do it. They're also linked to darkness and witchcraft because of their underground habitat, thus emulating Satan. Maybe this is why the mythical Jackalope creature was created by a taxidermist gluing antlers to a rabbit's head. The rabbit's foot is a derivative of historic folklore and superstition, where they are thought to bring its owner good luck when rubbed three time. Now the most legit and magical rabbit's feet come from black magicians and voodoo Doctors who sacrifice rabbits and their back-left-hind feet in a special midnight full-moon cemetery ceremony. Although debatable, somehow becameacquainted with good luck and lending itself to superstition.

Obviously having lots of sex, like a rabbit, is pro; but the underground devil associations and black magic sacrifice would most likely be a con; unless you're Rob Zombie. So I urge you to question tradition, fill your children's Easter Baskets rabbit's feet, make up a story involving the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy and this some fear inducing mob mob prize. This will teach your kids to behave. What does it matter anyway, Easter is a celebration of Jesus' resurrection, he was bloody tortured, and this also teaches your kids to behave.

Certainly sacrificing a cute little cuddly creature's paw will definitely cause you to win the lottery. Maybe even try chopping off your own hand and try putting it on a key-chain or a necklace around your neck. Nothing looks better when trying to unlock your front door, hand in hand with you own hand still fumbling for the keys. "Honey I'm home, look what I got for the kids Easter Baskets."

Leave a Reply.

LAJ

100 Objects of Popular and Material Culture is an blog exploring the manifestations of human consumption and commodity-ization. The purpose of this experiment is to explore material and popular culture in contemporary society by using objects and concepts to prompt wider questions and reflections. So by emulating The British Museum's and Neil MacGregor's format of A History of the World in 100 Objects I plan to satirically analyze and reinterpreted 100 material culture objects over the course of 2014. Material Culture is the study of our culture's consumption of stuff; namely the manifestation of culture through material productions where people's perceptions of objects is socially and culturally dependent. With this, objects reflect conscious and unconscious beliefs on the the individuals who fabricated, purchased, or used them, and by extension the society where they live. So examining materiality, cultural truths and societal assumptions may be discovered. As anthropologist Arjun Appaduai states "in any society the individual is often caught between the cultural structure of commodity-ization and his own personal attempts to bring a value and order to the universe of things." Objects and commodities make up a much larger symbolic system consisting of want and need, socio-economic status, fashion, etc. Often times form follows function whether the commodity, market, and or consumer forever evolve around one-another. Philosopher Pierre Bourdieu's theories of capital flow full circle; where regardless if you are a minimalist or a hoarder the world is made up of things and everyone will leave their footprint on the earth. So by humorously analyzing marketed objects and concepts, hopefully this blog will provide further incite into ideas of over-consumption, a disposable society, consumerism vs. anti-consumers, planned obsolescence vs. sustainability, as well as the greater good of mankind and future generations.